The following is one of the easiest ways that I have found to rip DVDs to a format playable by the ZEN X-Fi2.

EDIT: Updated with how to rip TV episodes.

Step 1 - Download some stuff:

DVD43 (This will decrypt (unlock) the DVDs allowing other ripping programs to access them) *NOTE: In some countries, it is illegal to 'unlock' some types of encryption. This is obviously a really stupid law but I just thought I'd let you know.

HandBrake 0.9.3 (Unfortunately, the developers got rid of both the .AVI container format and support for XVID encoding in the newest release. Therefore, you need version 0.9.3)

Step 2 - Install and reboot. (In order for DVD43 to find all your DVD drives, you should reboot after installing)

Step 3 - Insert DVD and wait for the DVD43 tray icon to turn into a green smiley face ( - like that but w/o teeth)

Step 4 - Load up HandBrake 0.9.3 * DON'T update if it asks you to *

Step 5 - Click the 'Source' menu and select your DVD
...It will take a few seconds to a minute to load...

Step 5.5 - Make sure that the proper 'Title' is selected. It will be the one that is the length of your movie. (HandBrake usually does a good job at this automatically)

Step 6 - Under 'Destination' choose your file name and where you want to save it. Make sure you save it with a '.avi' extension. Next, under 'Output Settings' select 'AVI'. Then, in the 'Picture Settings' tab, choose 'Anamorphic: None' and set the 'Width' to 640 leaving the 'Height' blank. This will keep the video within the 640x480 max resolution that the X-Fi2 has but allow different screen ratios. **Tech Stuff --> 640/480=1.333 ... This means that 'Full Screen' videos (4:3) will work fine with this method since the Aspect Ratio of 4/3=1.333 ... This is the ratio of the screen width to screen height. Wide screen (16:9 = 1.778) will still be okay because we keep the width at 640 and the height will drop to 360 instead of 480. Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85 or 2.35) drop the height even lower.

Step 7 - Under the 'Video' tab set 'Video Codec:' to 'MPEG-4 (XviD)' and set the 'Avg Bitrate (kbps):' to 800 (If your ripped video is choppy on your X-Fi 2 you may want to lower this number)

Step 8 - Under the 'Audio & Subtitles' tab change the 'Audio Codec' to MP3, the 'Mixdown' to Stereo, and the 'Samplerate (kHz)' to 44.1. You may also want to change the 'Subtitles' to 'Autoselect' and check the box next to 'Forced Subtitles Only'. Forced subs are the subtitles that you would normally see when someone speaks a non-English language in an English movie (like when Jaba the Hut talks in the Star Wars movies).

Step 9 - Press the Start button once everything looks good.
** If you are ripping TV episodes replace this step with the ones in the section at the bottom of this post **

Step 10 - Make a sandwich, and watch some cartoons... no really it will take a while.

Step 11 - When your video is ready test it on your computer. If it works fine, then move it to your X-Fi2 and test it there. You should be able to just drag and drop it into the video folder using Windows Explorer.

*****************************
To make a 'Preset' for your X-Fi2:

Step 12 - Make a 'Preset' in Handbrake so that you don't have to go through this whole process every time. Click 'Add' in the bottom right of the HandBrake window.
...Type a name for your preset and hit 'Add'...
...You should now ba able to select the preset from the preset menu and start encoding without having to change all of the settings manually...

*********************************
Ripping TV Episodes from a DVD:

Replace Step 9 from above with the following...

Step 9 - Click 'Add to Queue'

Step 9.1 - An encoding queue window will pop up... just move it to the side or minimize it for now.

Step 9.2 - a) Select the next episode (title). They are usually very similar in length as seen in the screen shot below.
b) Rename the episode
c) Click 'Add to Queue'

Step 9.3 - Repeat step 9.2 until all of the episodes on the disk are queued up.

Step 9.4 - a) Check that no two titles are the same (you may skip titles on some DVDs that have extras)
b) Check that each episode has a different name.
c) Click 'Encode' then continue on to step 10 above.

*******************************

Well, I hope this tutorial has helped. If you need me to make something a little more clear or think I should change something, just let me know.

__________________
If you have a question, please ask. I am more than happy to help.

Cheers,
Your friendly neighborhood Dark Lord

Last edited by LordXenos; 01-27-2010 at 06:36 PM.
Reason: Added some detail and a part on how to rip TV episodes

your default settings of 640 x ? is producing a video file 640 x 496, which isn't compatible with the player, any suggestions?

Try putting 480 as the height in the 'Width/Height' setting (so you have it set to 640 x 480). I'm assuming that it is a video in a non-widescreen format. All the videos that I have encoded are in some sort of widescreen so I haven't yet run across this problem.

Let me know if that helps.

__________________
If you have a question, please ask. I am more than happy to help.

Try putting 480 as the height in the 'Width/Height' setting (so you have it set to 640 x 480). I'm assuming that it is a video in a non-widescreen format. All the videos that I have encoded are in some sort of widescreen so I haven't yet run across this problem.

Let me know if that helps.

I'm sure it will, I ended up just making the width 512, but making the height 480 and letting it choose the width is probably a more elegant solution.

Whilst I'm asking stupid questions, do you know the best way of ripping a DVD of (for example a TV series) that has multiple episodes?

Cheers

Last edited by webologist; 01-18-2010 at 12:29 AM.
Reason: more questions

do you know the best way of ripping a DVD of (for example a TV series) that has multiple episodes?

HandBrake is probably the best for that as well. I used it to rip all five seasons of the Twilight Zone series (took forever). Use the "Add to Queue" button instead of the start button... Then select the next 'Title' (episode) and save that as a different name and so on. Repeat until you have the all of the episodes on that disk queued up, then click the start button that is in in Queue window (this window will pop up when you add your first title to the queue).

Let me know if it's not clear and I'll post some images.

__________________
If you have a question, please ask. I am more than happy to help.

I tried Handbrake out but I tried to convert a video file from my computer. But it never showed up in my designated output folder. What might I have forgotten? I've read through the tutorial twice and tried it twice with the same result.

EDIT: I now tried with another file (.MKV this time instead of an .AVI i really just wanted to re-size and change the bit-rate of) and now it appeared in the folder. Maybe it had something to do trying to make an .AVI to .AVI, I dunno.

@Habhome: I don't think I've seen this problem before. Are you getting any errors? You may want to watch it transcode a video (boring I know) to make sure it is not stopping before the process completes.

When I get a little more time I'll check into it more (this weekend remind me if it's still a problem). It's rush week for my fraternity AND my birthday is tomorrow so I won't have any time until probably Friday . When I do get that much needed time I'll also make a few minor updates and expansions to the tutorial.

Also... the post got stickied... woohoo!

__________________
If you have a question, please ask. I am more than happy to help.

@Habhome: The only thing I can think of is that maybe there is a problem with the original .AVI that you are trying to convert (It may play fine but it could be encoded with something that HandBrake has trouble reading)

You could try to transcode the problem file with MediaCoder, though the interface is a bit more confusing than HandBrake.

__________________
If you have a question, please ask. I am more than happy to help.

@Habhome: The only thing I can think of is that maybe there is a problem with the original .AVI that you are trying to convert (It may play fine but it could be encoded with something that HandBrake has trouble reading)

Experiencing the same problem now as before, Handbrake completely refuses to do anything. Here's the log it creates, I can't understand what's wrong from it..

Also I'm trying out MediaCoder, It is indeed a more complex interface =P Hardest part was getting the resolution and cropping correct to fit the X-Fi2 screen.

__________________"If you are good enough at English to apologize, then there is no need to." - A good friend of mine
Discovered something about the X-Fi2 you think others may not know? Post it here so others can learn about it!
Have a question about X-Fi2 apps? Consult the FAQ before creating a thread about it.Like my work? Tell your friends. Don't like it? Tell me so I can improve. ^.^

".avi.avi" ?? Are you saving it with double .avi extensions? I don't think it would give you the problem you are getting though and it might not matter at all.

I believe this may be where one problem starts. But we'll deal with this later if it is a problem.

I believe these status_access_violation errors are somewhat common with mp3 audio encoding. Try encoding in another audio format that the X-Fi2 supports (WMA, Audible, AAC, and FLAC)

Let me know if it works out for you.

Double extension was the work of the HandBrake auto-naming, didn't even think about checking that.

And it can only encode the audio to MP3 or AC3. When I started it with AC3 it at least didn't fail first thing it did, but I doubt the X-Fi2 can handle it.

Also I'm having trouble with the MediaCoder, it doesn't do the entire video. First it stopped at 8m+ then 11m+.

__________________"If you are good enough at English to apologize, then there is no need to." - A good friend of mine
Discovered something about the X-Fi2 you think others may not know? Post it here so others can learn about it!
Have a question about X-Fi2 apps? Consult the FAQ before creating a thread about it.Like my work? Tell your friends. Don't like it? Tell me so I can improve. ^.^

It doesn't have an option to encode to AAC? My Handbrake installation has that option.

Quote:

Also I'm having trouble with the MediaCoder

I would love to get MediaCoder working, as it is a much more robust program, but I haven't been able to successfully transcode a .mkv video to an XviD with it that would play properly on the X-Fi2. I will continue to investigate the use of MediaCoder and maybe post what I use as a preset for it.

__________________
If you have a question, please ask. I am more than happy to help.

It doesn't have an option to encode to AAC? My Handbrake installation has that option.

I would love to get MediaCoder working, as it is a much more robust program, but I haven't been able to successfully transcode a .mkv video to an XviD with it that would play properly on the X-Fi2. I will continue to investigate the use of MediaCoder and maybe post what I use as a preset for it.

Nope, mine didn't show that option to me.. I'll investigate further tomorrow though.

And I'll also play with the MediaCodec. My partial files were fully playable, but the video frame rate was messed up so it was too fast for the audio.

__________________"If you are good enough at English to apologize, then there is no need to." - A good friend of mine
Discovered something about the X-Fi2 you think others may not know? Post it here so others can learn about it!
Have a question about X-Fi2 apps? Consult the FAQ before creating a thread about it.Like my work? Tell your friends. Don't like it? Tell me so I can improve. ^.^